climate crisis

In April of 1945 a number of grand historical projects were simultaneously underway. In Europe, more than ten million battle-hardened soldiers were converging upon Germany, from the east and from the west, to drive the final nail into the coffin of the odious Nazi regime. (They succeeded on May 8th.) In Asia and the Pacific, a similar effort was underway to force Imperial Japan to accept “unconditional surrender.” (They succeeded on August 15^th.) In the deserts of New Mexico and elsewhere in the United States, in total secrecy, thousands of scientists were laboring to invent a bomb that could destroy a city in a second, and give humanity for the first time the ability to bring about its own extinction by its own hands. (They succeeded on July 16^th.)

And at the same time, hundreds of individuals were preparing to convene in San Francisco to invent a new global political body, which might – as the eventual United Nations Charter they produced boldly proclaimed – “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” (They succeeded, at least with the new international organization part, by signing that Charter on June 26^th, and bringing the new United Nations into being on October 24^th.)